


Like Icarus, undaunted

by who_needs_words



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archivist Basira Hussain, Beholding Avatar Basira Hussain, Buried Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Fear Entity Alignment Swap (The Magnus Archives), M/M, No beta we die like archival assistants, Role Reversal, Vast Avatar Martin Blackwood, canon typical buried content, canon typical vast content, how do you tag, like it's barely implied but it is there i want you to know that, okay the jgm is very very light, the painful process of becoming an avatar of a terrible fear god, vast!martin and buried!jon are peak opposites attract
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/who_needs_words/pseuds/who_needs_words
Summary: Basira Hussain doesn't like being the Archivist. She likes meeting with far too friendly Vast Avatars only a little less.Or: Martin Blackwood, Avatar of the Vast gives the new Archivist some advice and a story.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Basira Hussain, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Pre-Relationship - Relationship, Pre-Relationship JGM
Comments: 5
Kudos: 77





	Like Icarus, undaunted

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Fire In The Sky" by Kristoph Klover
> 
> Fun fact about this au; it was originally supposed to be an exploration of Archivist! Basira, with a sprinkling of other characters. Then vast!martin invaded and made his is story. I have no control. 
> 
> If you're here for jgm content, I'm sorry the relationship is only vaguely implied. I swear I will write for them at some point.

Martin had been making tea when it happened. This was not particularly unusual. Martin had been making or drinking anytime something even remotely important happened in his life. He’d been making tea when he Became. He’d offered tea to Simon the first time they had met, he’d been drinking tea when he got the call his mother had passed. And while not technically tea, the first time he’d properly met Gerry the man had taken his coffee and dumped it on a flaming book. 

Important things always tend to happen when he was drinking tea. Meeting the new Archivist was no different. 

Of course he’d heard Gertrude had died. She was a legend amongst the avatar community. Having earned the hard won spot of being the most terrifying pat of the avatar community. Quite possibly because everyone knew she hated them and hated all the entities, even her own. Gertrube Robinson was a nuclear warhead Martin had been lucky enough to never encounter. He had survived this long and he had no intention of dying under the gaze of the Eye.

He had been incredibly grateful to hear her replacement was less murder inclined. That relief had quickly left when he had heard that before she was Archivist, Basira Hussain had been a sectioned officer with a Hunter for a partner. 

But still he reflected;she was better that Gertrude Robinson. 

He would rather have tea with this new Archivist than Gertrude Robinson any day. 

“Tea” he asked again, the woman sitting across from him simply shook her head. “Ah” he said, unsure. “You sure? I've been told I can make a mean cup of tea.'' Still the Archivist just sat there, staring at him with fro too much intensity. Martin gulped nervously. She was scary, this new Archivist. Tall and dangerous. It was all too easy to see the Eye in her. She tracked every single one of his movements. It reminded him in a sickening way of the way Julia Montauk had watched him the one time they had met. Never looking away, watching Martin for weakness. 

_Well, good luck_ he thought and buried the desire to smirk. If she tried something she would regret it. They all did, once they learned Martin Blackwood was not so easily killed. 

“If you’re sure” he said instead and sat down at the table. “I’ve served tea to almost all the avatars you can think of. Even your ever watchful boss. They seemed to like it” Basira gave him a smile, it looked painful. 

“Mr.Blackwood” the Archivist started “I came for a reason if you will?”

“Martin” he corrects her “please just call me Martin, everyone does” Basira pulled on another of her tense smiles. It was clear she just wanted to get right to it. Everyone was always rushing around. No-one took the time to slow down and take the world in. She remind him a bit of Jon; always busy, always in motion. He swallowed the urge to smile at the thought. “Alright Archivist, what can I do for you?”

The Archivist took a deep breath **“How did you become?”** Martin’s breath caught, words pressing against his teeth, longing to escape. Well then. He had tried to be polite but if the Archivist wanted to it this way insisted… who was he to argue. 

“I made a choice” there, nice and simple. Gerry and Jon had done their jobs well when they taught him how to survive. Among many things, Martin knew how to avoid the ever seeking eye if needed. How to give answers that were nonanswers. 

The Archivist’s eyes flashed in what Martin recognized as both hunger and anger. He knew he had but a second before Basira ripped what she wanted from him. 

That second was more than enough time. 

He graded the fabric of his world and ripped. The world around him melted like ice cream left in the sun too long. He parted the veil of what most saw and let what was beyond rush in. Though the tear in existence the sky flowed like a terrible waterfall. The sky in all it’s all it’s beautiful blue glory filled the room. Martin breathed in deeply as the mask of a cutesy living room faded away to reveal the endless void of his beloved sky. 

Next to him, or what passed for next to him in this endless blue, the Archivist screamed. 

It hurt… Martin disliked feeding. He’s spent so much of his life trying to be helpful. The idea of willing hurting others for his own survival pained him. Mostly he dropped monsters or other avatars into the endless sky-ocean-void-stars-lost of the Vast. It was more dangerous sure, but that method didn’t force him to cross his morals.

Well, he supposed the Archivist was an avatar on her way to becoming; so no lines crossed. 

“I should leave you here” he told her. He really should, who knew what Elias was planning. It was better for all of them if he removed his prized little Archivist. It was Elias’ fault for sending her out without properly preparing her. On the other hand, Elias was an enemy he didn’t want to make. 

“Tell you what Archivist, you stay here with me and I'll tell you a story. Then you leave forever? Hmm?” that sounded like a good compromise. The Archivist didn’t reply, not that she could, the Vast could be literally breathtaking. 

\---

“It was Jon’s fault ironically enough. Have heard of him yet, Archivist? Jonathan Sims? Scrawny little thing, all pointy elbows and sticks for arms. Always covered in a thick layer of dust no matter the situation? Not that most people who encounter him of are really able to give a description. Jon rarely actually shows his face when feeding. But he has to be in your little archive somewhere, he's too prolific to have not been reported at least once. Of course most of what he does is much more subtle than everyone else. Causing breakdowns in sleep deprived academics. 

It’s funny if you think about it. If someone is in over their head, Jon just might make that literal. If someone is ‘buried in work’ well Jon takes that as an invitation to pay you a visit. 

That’s what happened to me, you see. I was under too much pressure, Jon decided to make that literal. Well not decided-it wasn’t really his choice. You see, many newly Become avatars have historically terrible impulsive control, all they are is hunger and the drive to find prey. They are pure instinct with no ability to think. I was too when I first started out. The key I've learned is time and connections. 

Has something explained anchors to you yet? Well they’re not just important for escaping domains, a good anchor can keep you from splitting away from yourself. 

That’s the thing with Becoming, you welcome an entity into yourself. If you believe in souls then imagine it like binding your soul to your entity. There is this connection, they give you powers, in exchange you feed them. If you take too much and don’t give enough they start feeding on you. Feed your entity or it feeds on you. There’s a phrase you’ll hear repeated a lot, especially to new avatars. 

But that connection- it can be overwhelming, the power starts to… drown you. I suppose. That’s the best comparison I can give. If you open that connection too wide, or leave it open too long? It floods you, hollows out what used to be a person with free will and into something that is pure instinct, you become only the endless hunger, any… personhood is taken. 

That’s what an anchor is for, making sure that in Becoming you don’t drown in your connection to your entity. It’s why so many of us are pack creatures- even the Lukas’s. You need a connection, an anchor. They’re essential to staying human. Well perhaps not human, but maintaining your personality and will. An anchor helps you keep your ability to chose, not just act as an extension of your entitie’s desire to feed.

But that’s not what you want is it? You want to know how I Became? In the end it was simple; Jon crushed me under money and stress until my lungs collapsed and my bones turned to coal from the pressure. I’ve forgiven him since, but being crushed alive because you were so stressed and overwhelmed a Buried avatar viewed you as prey? Not pleasant. Lucky he didn’t kill me, just left me dying. Gerry dragged him away- don’t ask me about those two. It’s complicated. 

I was left dying on my own kitchen floor, the tea I had been drinking not five minutes before spilled all over the floor. I can’t tell you what exactly happened. I only remember bits. The swilling brown of the spilled tea as it slowly spread and consumed the floor. Looking up at the photos I had on the wall- inherited from Mrs.Carmen when she died. They were all these lovely scenic watercolors, all of the sky or the ocean, even one void of space. 

I remember getting lost in the beauty of their endless blue. I clearly remember desperately wishing to be swept away by the bigness of those skies. In them I would be small, in them I would be free. 

It was really about freedom you see, the Vast offered me freedom and an escape from my own… self centeredness. Before my world was so small and all consuming. Work, mum, more work, bills, tea, mum, work, work, mum, more work. All slowly choking me, crushing me under too much. The Vast showed me my own insignificance, freed me from my worries. And this may sound silly, but it severed the connections that had been dragging me down. 

The next thing I knew I was waking up- and I could breath. Not just that my lungs were no longer jelly in my chest, but I was free. Words can’t explain it Archivist- the freedom of dying buried under the pressure of Choke that had been killing me long before an avatar arrived at my door. Then I woke up entrapped by the endless freedom of the Falling Titan. Words can not explain. 

The rest I believe… is a little more personal. Don’t you think?”

\---

He left the Archivist in a park, under a gazebo, because he wasn’t needlessly cruel. When he’d stepped out his domain it had been into an open park bathed in the warmth of the afternoon sunshine.

The Archivist had taken not but a single deep breath before promptly collapsing. Martin, had enough self awareness to know he had cruel to her. Avatars just starting out should be embraced by the community, not left to choke on too much air because they offended someone. So he carried her over to the gazebo and left her with a twenty, enough for a taxi to wherever she needed to go. 

That was enough, he decided. He’d given her what she wanted. The Archivist would wake up soon, and Martin didn’t fancy still being here when she did. 

Besides, he had a date that afternoon. It was best to not keep them waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to the JGM discord being great (and giving me the buried! Jon idea)
> 
> IDK, maybe I'll write more for this? I at the very least want to explore buried!jon more. 
> 
> If you see any spelling errors of if I'm missing tags just tell me.


End file.
